Exodus 36
Moses calls all the artisans
1Moses also said: ‘The Lord has given wisdom to Bezalel and Oholiab and all the other artisans. He has made them clever so that they can do all work at the temple. They must do as God said.’
2Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and all the other artisans who were clever because the Lord was with them and everyone who wanted to help with the work. Moses called them to come and do the work. 3Moses gave them all the gifts that the Israelites had given for the work at the temple. Every morning the Israelites gave more gifts to Moses. 4The artisans who were working at the temple all came from the places where they were working. 5They said to Moses: ‘The people have given too many gifts. We have more than we need to do the work that the Lord told us to do.’
6Moses then told everyone in the camp not to bring any more gifts to the tent of the Lord. The people did not bring any more gifts. 7The gifts that they gave were enough for all the work and there were some gifts left over.
The Israelites make the tent of the Lord
8All the good artisans started to make the tent of the Lord. They took 10 pieces_of_material, which was good linen and blue, purple and red wool. They sewed pictures of cherub-angels onto the material. 9Each piece_of_material was 28 cubits long and 4 cubits wide. 10They sewed 5 pieces_of_material together and then sewed the other 5 pieces together. 11They made blue loops from wool and sewed them on one side of the material. They did the same with the other piece_of_material. 12They sewed 50 loops on one piece_of_material and 50 loops on the other piece of material. The loops were opposite each other. 13They also sewed 50 golden hooks on each piece_of_material so that they could put the hooks into the loops to fasten the curtains of the tent of the Lord to each other. 14Then they took goat hair and they made a big piece_of_material to cover the tent of the Lord. They made this covering from 11 pieces of material made of goat hair. 15Each piece_of_material was 30 cubits long and 4 cubits wide. 16They sewed 5 pieces_of_material together and then they sewed the other 6 pieces together. 17They sewed 50 loops on the side of one piece_of_material and 50 loops on the side of another piece_of_material. 18They sewed 50 bronze hooks onto the material of the tent so that they could fasten the pieces to each other so that it could be one tent.
19They made another covering for the tent from sheepskins which were coloured red. They also made a covering from soft leather and they put it over the red covering.
The frame of the tent of the Lord
20They made frames of acacia wood for the tent of the Lord to keep it upright. 21Each frame was 10 cubits long and one and a half cubits wide. 22Each frame had 2 wooden pegs and 2 holes in it. They put the wooden pegs into the holes so that they could fasten the poles to each other. They tied all the frames of the tent of the Lord to each other like that. 23-26They made 20 frames for the southern side and 20 frames for the northern side of the tent of the Lord. They also made 40 silver stands for each side. They put the stands under the frames, 2 stands under each frame where the 2 wooden pegs were.
27For the back of the tent of the Lord, on the western side, they made 6 frames 28and 2 frames for the corners of the tent of the Lord, the 2 corners at the back of the tent. 29They used 2 poles for the bottom of the frames to make it stronger. There were 2 poles from the bottom to the top ring. 30On the western side were 8 frames and there were 16 silver stands, 2 stands under each frame. 31-32They made crossbars from acacia wood, 5 crossbars for the frames on each side of the tent of the Lord and 5 crossbars for the frames at the back of the tent, the western side. 33The crossbar in the middle was very long. They tied it to the middle of the frames from one side to the other side. 34They covered the frames with gold. They also made gold rings and they put the crossbars through the rings and they also covered the crossbars with gold.
The curtain for the tent of the Lord
35They made a curtain from blue, purple and red wool material and from good linen, and they sewed pictures of cherub-angels onto the curtains. 36They made 4 poles from acacia wood and covered them with gold. They fastened golden hooks to them and they made 4 silver stands for them. 37They made a curtain for the door of the tent. They made it from blue, purple and red wool material and from good linen and they sewed pictures onto it. 38They hung the curtain on 5 poles with hooks. They covered the tops of the poles and also the crossbars with gold. They also made 5 stands from bronze.
English Bible for the Deaf © Bible Society of South Africa 2019. Used with permission. All rights reserved.